


Mad World

by timetravelwithcamelotsdetective



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, Minor Character Death Mentioned, Song fic, kind of pre slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-12
Updated: 2012-12-12
Packaged: 2017-11-20 23:48:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/591064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/timetravelwithcamelotsdetective/pseuds/timetravelwithcamelotsdetective
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life has lead Merlin astray. And surely ending everything is easier than carrying on? These thoughts danced in Merlin's mind day after day but there was something in his heart, something pulling at his soul that made him carry on. Fate has something in store for Merlin... a chance passing from Arthur Pendragon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mad World

_All around me are familiar faces, worn out places, worn out faces, bright and early for their daily races, going nowhere, going nowhere_

Merlin was a people watcher. In a café he would sit for hours on end, watching the world go by. People would walk past him every day, the same people in the same suits, with the same looks on their faces. They rushed passed like there was no tomorrow; they never took it slow. He found it strange that there was always a time, always a place that these people needed to be. If he watched long enough, hoped strong enough, wished hard enough, the people would come back. Their expressions were different in the evenings than they were in the mornings. The tiredness in their eyes was different, more weary than actually tired.  
Merlin had no ambitions in life. Maybe he should own a coffee shop; that would give him a reason to always be there. His father had left him enough money when he died that Merlin could do one of two things. One: sit and do nothing. Two: do something productive with it. He chose option one. It was easier, calmer, quieter. Why did he need to rush around, a harrowed look in his eyes? Why did he need to build up a business when everyone just dies in the end anyway?

_Their tears are filling up their glasses, no expression, no expression, hide my head I want to drown my sorrow, no tomorrow, no tomorrow_

Despite appearances, Merlin was smarter than he looked. His big blue eyes made him look innocent, like a deer ready to bolt. His sticky-out ears made his face look comical and his incredibly sharp cheekbones made him look like an adolescent rather than a twenty-something year old man. When his father died, Merlin dropped out of university (a law degree at Cambridge) and just stopped. Stopped moving, stopped trying, stopped caring, stopped living.  
His extraordinary intelligence would probably explain how he remembered every face he saw and managed to work out their life story within five minutes. For example: he could see that the blonde haired lady across the road had just separated from her husband and was trying desperately to get away from the life she had known with him; or that the ginger kid going into the bookshop had been bullied every day for the past three years but didn’t want to tell anyone, the bullies would only hurt him more. He was able to pick out bits of their lives from the way their makeup sat on their face (it doesn’t sit right on tear stained cheeks) or from the hang of their suits from their shoulders.

_And I find it kinda funny, I find it kinda sad, the dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had, I find it hard to tell you, I find it hard to take, when people run in circles it's a very very mad world mad world_

But watching these people just made things worse. They were living, breathing, working. They didn’t worry about the end. None of them had ever stopped and just thought. Every single one of them just carried on, no matter what happened. Keep calm and carry on: wasn’t that just the way it worked?  
Everything was so much bigger than Merlin knew he could ever imagine. That there was more to life and death, more to happiness and sorrow, more to black and white, than he could ever know. But that didn’t stop him wondering. He wanted a destiny, he wanted something to live for, a reason for being; otherwise, what was the point? It was easier to end it all, surely? Easier to just stop than keep waiting, waiting for something that may never come. Yet the pull of his heart to something he couldn’t explain was too strong; so he kept waiting, kept waiting for whatever was hidden in a mystery.  
It was a sad reality to live in. Not really a life at all. All the things that he could have done, all the things he could have been, and he chose this. He chose to be a nobody. Just  like the bullies had said that ginger kid would be.

_Children waiting for the day they feel good, happy birthday, happy birthday, made to feel the way that every child should, sit and listen, sit and listen_

Merlin hadn’t always been like this. He’d been a happy child. Funny, kind, clever. He was gifted and had often been praised for it. Every moment of his childhood he had loved. Just him and his father, for he needed no one else. He enjoyed listening to other children, loved helping everyone he could, hated any injustice. There had been a passion and a flair in his belly, a fire that no one believed could be but out. But they didn’t see what sparked the flame. Balinor Emrys had been absolutely everything to Merlin. It wasn’t just a father and son bond they had. They were best friends, they we confidants to one another, they were comforters and carers. They were everything.  
Everything had been okay, everything had been perfect. And that made Merlin think now; if something so perfect can shatter so easily, then why bother at all? That’s where the passion went; into the ground with Balinor’s body.

_Went to school and I was very nervous, no one knew me, no one knew me, hello teacher tell me what's my lesson, look right through me, look right through me_

He hadn’t wanted to leave home and go to Cambridge. A small village in Wales was all he had ever needed. But his father had sat him down and convinced him it was for the best. So Merlin had left home and gone to England. It was so different. The teachers were stricter, the rooms weren’t homely, it was all too impersonal. He had retracted into himself and gone downhill from there. Invisibility had never been a talent Merlin thought he possessed until he reached university. It was all too easy to just sink into the background and pretend he didn’t exist and maybe that’s what made life so much easier for him. He always chose the simple path, where he couldn’t get hurt, where he couldn’t lose.

_And I find it kinda funny, I find it kinda sad, the dreams in which I’m dying are the best I’ve ever had, I find it hard to tell you, I find it hard to take, when people run in circles it’s a very very mad world mad world_

But he had lost. He wasn’t a winner, far from it.  
People-watching was interesting, he learnt a lot from it; a lot about himself, a lot about others, a lot about life. With a warm cup of coffee in his hand and a comfy chair to sit on, Merlin could lose himself again without being judged. He could dream about ending everything, dream about finding everything he needed. Yet it was people-watching that showed him that he couldn’t do that. Time waits for no man, and at some point he would have to live again. Running round in circles would one day be part of his routine again. Reality was far too scary though, too scary to contemplate.

_Mad world, mad world, enlarge your world_

It was only a matter of months before everything changed.  
Merlin sat in his same seat in the coffee shop, and as he people-watched he saw a blonde haired man cross the world. The chiselled jawline was strikingly familiar, the blue of his eyes glistened in a way Merlin felt he had always known, the goofy grin caused Merlin’s heart to flutter in a way it hadn’t in a while.  
Merlin did recognise the man but at the same time he didn’t recognise him. In his heart of hearts though, Merlin knew that this was what he had been waiting for. He rose from his seat and swept out the shop and chased (as politely as possible) the man down the street.  
For Merlin and Arthur, the rest, as they say, is history.

_Mad world_


End file.
